Our commitment
DROIT économique - COMMANDE PUBLIQUE
Les interventions d’AVENS s’articulent principalement autour des axes suivants :
Competition
- Counsel and representation of companies in cases of breaches of antitrust law
- Assistance and representation in national proceedings before competition authorities and appeals
- Assistance in the opening of a proceeding
- Assistance in drafting agreements compliant with competition law
- Assistance in control of concentrations and notifications
- Assessment of agreements, contracts and practices of state-owned companies with respect to state aid regulations
- Representation of companies who are victims of cartels by suppliers or competitors
European trade
- Assessment of national regulation compliance with Community regulation
- Assistance and representation in Community proceedings
- Actions before the European Court of Justice regarding the free movement of goods and services
- Actions in cases of civil liability (harm to competitors)
Distribution
- Distribution agreements and general conditions of sale
- Selective and exclusive distribution agreements
- Franchise agreements
- Implementation of distribution networks
- Licensing and commercial partnership agreements
- Sales reps, field reps, commission-based reps and brokers
- Central purchasing
Corporate criminal law
AVENS assists and represents companies in criminal law in the courts as the accused or plaintiff in cases of:
- economic offences (involving business practices, pricing, false advertising),
- misappropriation of assets, publication of false accounts,
- favouritism in tendering, corruption,
- tax and customs offences,
- stock market offences (insider training, price manipulation),
- laundering,
- fraud and forgery,
- computer fraud,
- personal data breaches,
- sanctions from regulatory bodies (CNIL, ARCEP, ombudsman, ACPR, AMF, etc.)
Compliance
- Implementation of compliance programmes
- Drafting of codes of best in-house practices
- Personal liability of company head or compliance manager
Training
AVENS offers economic law training to legal and operational teams:
Examples of training courses offered:
- Drafting of agreements in compliance with anti-trust law
- Illegal business practices
- Implementation of in-house policies for reporting and dealing with anti-competitive risk
- Raising awareness among operational staff of business practices which may constitute an unlawful agreement
- Criminal risk in corporate dealings and in international trade
PUBLIC PROCUREMENT
AVENS assists public buyers and economic agents operating in France or abroad in their procurement activities.
Advice
For public purchasers (contracting entities and authorities)
- Analysis of investment plans in terms of the public procurement and public tender rules and proposals
- Help with purchasing strategy
- Help drawing up or legal oversight of tendering documents (advertising, tendering regulation, etc.)
- Legal oversight of consultation documents (consultation rules, statements, terms and conditions, questionnaires, advertising, etc.)
- Assistance throughout the consultation procedure
- Drafting documents at the conclusion of the process (rejection letters, advertising, etc.)
- Overseeing the implementation of tenders, contracts.
- Consulting on the definition of strategies to defend market share or move on new market opportunities
- Helping drafting response documents
- Putting together the application
- Checking the legal admissibility of tenders
Litigation
Avens assists and represents clients before judicial and administrative courts:
- Precontractual appeal to legal and administrative authorities
- Contractual appeal
- Defence or compensation claims
- Defence or cancellation claims
- Defence or claim at the magistrate’s court (nepotism, etc.)
- Complaint lodged with the European Commission
- Expertise, disputes with successful bidders or subcontractors
- For the supplanted company or in the event of a rejected bid, or indeed in the absence of a consultation procedure, our lawyers assist legal teams and managers to devise the defence strategy and implement it.
Formation
AVENS, a registered training institution, offers training for operational, purchasing and legal teams working for contracting authorities and entities, as well as for tendering companies. For purchasing entities, our training courses raise awareness among teams of regulation and procedures, of legal risks and of failure and success factors. For tendering companies, we offer a generic training course on “how to win a tender” which we systematically adapt to the nature of the business, its sector and the types of tender.
Our firm offers purchasing authorities and entities a training course on changes to procurement law following Ordonnance No. 2015-899 of 23 July 2015 on public procurement and Décret No. 2016-360 of 25 March 2016 on public procurement.
Drafting of purchasing guides
Avens drafts purchasing guides for purchasing authorities and entities.
